


Cradle

by Ellie101



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2004-09-23
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 21:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1914444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellie101/pseuds/Ellie101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jareth gets what he wants, no matter the price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rock-A-Bye Baby

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story which has been a thorn in my side for yeeeears. It started off as a one-shot in 2004. Then I started adding chapters and promptly retired from fanfiction. I've popped in and out of "retirement" for a while now and this story sitting there unfinished and gathering dust has always given me a nagging sense of guilt. 
> 
> So I've been working on updating the tale and at least finishing one multi-chapter fic in the Labyrinth 'verse. So here it is, 10 years later.... 
> 
> Reviews fuel the writing machine so please feel free! ;)

Sarah's baby gurgled in her tiny crib. Her mother was tossing and turning in bed, Sarah dreamed of endless darkness and vicious soldiers taking her husband captive. Sarah moaned, as in dream, blood dripped down Ryan's agonized face as a shadowed figure murdered him. A small cry woke her.

Baby Jessie began to cry and in the fashion of mothers everywhere, Sarah rose rapidly from sweaty sheets to reassure her.

Her voice sliced smoothly through the velvet shadow. "Hush, Sweetie. Hush, my darling... Mommy's here."

Baby Jessie heard the comfort in Sarah's words, felt the envelope of love in her mother's arms, and allowed herself to be rocked back to sleep and settled in her cradle.

Sarah brushed the wispy brown hairs out of Jessie's eyes and watched her child slumber. Jessie's amber eyes never opened, nor did her tiny form move—apart from the gentle rhythmic rise and fall of her chest.

Unable to return to sleep, Sarah sat in the worn rocking chair that had been her great-grandmother's and looked out of the window and stared at nothing at all. Thoughts tumbled in and out of her mind and worry for Ryan seemed so strong and terrifyingly real that she was almost afraid that she would choke on it. He was beyond her now. She had no way of knowing whether he was even alive.

Fear rose in floods until her dull green eyes brightened with the sheen of unwept tears. Tears for her husband, and herself, but most of all, her darling Jessie. It tore through her, out of her, until she was gasping for breath and wrapping her arms around herself so tightly that her hands turned white. But her agony was silent. Jessie would never wake to the sound of her mother's pain. Of that, Sarah was certain.

Hours passed. Until, finally, sleep stole Sarah away and the man in black appeared beside her. His eyes were cruel. His love, even more so. For he did love, though he often tried to hate her for it. Yes, his little Sarah had grown up, he thought bitterly. Grown and in love with another. He leaned down and observed her: his savior, his defeat. Still beautiful, not even exhaustion would steal that from her. Her eyelids may have been ringed in puffy gray, but he knew her eyes were the same. A green to tempt the finest of emeralds, and a light that drew his darkness. For what was he but darkness? For ten years he had watched her succumb to love. A love that equaled and surpassed any twisted emotion that he could possibly offer her.

So he had sat in silence, damning her for being happy, damning her for living without him when he could not breathe without her. He had thought that her suffering would make it easier, but he was wrong. It was far worse to watch her this way. To watch her light dampen and her spirit fade. She held on now, he knew, for the child. And for the hope she held for her husband's safe return, hope that he knew would soon die.

He brushed a lock of silken hair off of Sarah's sleeping face and walked to the cradle. In it lay Sarah's baby. In it lay innocence. His smile was icy and brittle as he mockingly rocked the little cradle with his fingertips. "You will be lovely, my dear. You, with your mother's face and your father's eyes. You will be her saving grace."

His eyes burned bright as he continued, "And you will be her downfall."

Smiling his broken smile, Jareth picked up the silent child and swung her around. "For that, I could almost love you."

Baby Jessie stared into the chilling darkness of his face and felt a prick, pain blossomed and she opened her mouth to cry but instead fell instantly into a well of enchanted sleep.

Jareth whispered the words into her blood-pricked finger and delighted in the magic that drained into the sleeping child. She was his now. And soon, soon her mother would be too.

He settled Jessie back into the cradle with practiced ease and frowned. With her eyes closed, with the maddening amber tucked away, she was almost... precious.

But his heart was filled with Sarah, and not even that tiny piece of her could make room in it. He walked back to Sarah while the rising sun drenched them both in red.

Her husband's blood on him, and now her daughter's. Both would get him what he wanted. What he needed.

He wanted Sarah.

He touched her once, his Sarah, just as she was waking— felt her smooth skin before he vanished into air. But his dark purpose lingered in the dying darkness: He would have her.

She would be his.


	2. A Dark Deed

Jessie didn't remember her Daddy. Her Mommy told her stories about him though. Mommy said that Jessie had her Daddy's eyes.

Jessie looked into the mirror and stared at her eyes until they were blurry. They were the exact same color as the honey that Aunt Tera always put in tea. Jessie loved her eyes, they were from her Daddy. But when Madison and Jenny talked about their Daddies, Jessie's chest hurt. And sometimes she hated that she had her Daddy's eyes. Because she would have given them back if it meant she could have HIM.

Mommy was singing along with the radio. Jessie smelled dinner cooking. And as Jessie met her own gaze in the mirror she suddenly felt mean and angry.

"I wish I had a Daddy! A _real_ Daddy, not just some stupid _eyes_!"

Sarah's smile froze and brittled. She stood in the doorway while her little girl screamed at herself in the mirror. And Sarah's heart broke a little more.

"Oh, baby. I know you do." The words tore themselves from her throat as she reached out to hold her child. The only part of Ryan that she had left.

Jessie felt the meanness curling in her tummy push more words out: "He left us! He didn't love us! I want a _real_ Daddy! I do!"

Sarah held Jessie tight and tried to think past the sudden overwhelming loss that always streaked through her whenever Jessie asked about Ryan.

"Baby, I know that he would want to be with us. He wanted to be your Daddy, he just never had the chance." Sarah's hands ran through Jessie's dark hair and then smoothed down her heaving back.

"I don't care! I want a Daddy! I wish... I wish that I could go away! I wish that the goblins would take us away!"

The words. And what's said is said.

She scooped Jessie up and ran for the stairs. A desperate loop of panic and fear giving her speed: _Get Out. Get OUT. Get out, get out, get out._

Sarah's hand was on the doorknob when she realized that Jessie was speaking to her. "Mommy? Mommy what's wrong? Where are we going?"

Her hand clenched on the knob. What was she doing? Running into the night because her daughter had spoken words from her childhood? Nothing had happened. They were fine.

The Labyrinth wasn't real—just a childhood dream. The goblins were not coming for them—just a story from a book.

Her brow furrowed. "Jessie, where did you hear that? Where did you hear about goblins?"

Jessie's big amber eyes met hers with a directness that unnerved most people."From the story Mommy. The one about the King and the Brave Girl."

Chills raced down her spine. "Jessie, I never told you that story. Where did you hear it?"

"I don't know."

"Think hard, honey. It's really important."

Jessie's eyes widened in fear as she pointed at the shadows past Sarah's shoulder.

Even while she turned, putting her body between the danger and her daughter, Sarah knew what was in the darkness. She knew who would step out of the shadows. Deep down, she _knew_.

"The child's always known the story, Sarah." Jareth stepped out with a flourish of one gloved hand. His eyes met hers as he whispered a word that hovered between them: a Brave Woman and a Dark King.

"Always."

Jareth weaved a crystal through the air with a languid hand. Sarah waited for his offer while her pulse seemed to lodge in her throat. Her eyes tracked the winking globe with sudden desperation.

His voice held the cool disdain that she remembered, "Do you want this crystal Sarah? I'm afraid I have no intention of repeating my previous offer. Or didn't you realize?"

He stepped closer and his smile turned sinister even as his eyes seemed to drink her in, "Didn't you realize," He repeated. "That you're mine?"

She remembered trying to turn, trying to run from those hungry eyes. But then everything swirled and twisted until she didn't remember anything at all.

Not until she woke up covered in black satin sheets. Alone.

And she _knew_ that Jessie was with _him_. And a terror like nothing she had ever felt seemed to overtake her.

Dear god. Her child was with the Goblin King.


	3. For A Dark Purpose

Jessie didn't know what to do. She and Mommy had been in their house, right next to the front door, until a stranger had just appeared. And then they were gone, in a big smelly room that was made of stone. Or at least that was where Jessie was. She didn't know where her Mommy was.

Now the man in black was just standing there... Not bringing her mother, just smiling at her. Jessie began to cry and scream for Sarah. Something about him wasn't _right_. Something about him was scarier than the things that every child knows lurks in the cracks under beds and inside closet doors. Something about him was scarier than the monsters.

His eyes narrowed, Angry. He was angry. Jessie tried to run.

"Shhhhhhhhh." Leather-covered fingers along her skin, a voice in her ears: "Remember now, little girl... Remember."

And Jessie fell, dizzy, into the sound of her captor's voice.

~0o0~

Sarah flung the cool fabric up and away. _Jessie. Oh, god. He had Jessie_. She half-slid, half-scrambled off of the dark pool of bed she had awoken in, falling to icy marbled floors with a jolt to her ankles that had her lurching painfully to the side.

The room was unrelieved black—not a hint of color to be found anywhere. Sarah felt a flare of righteous fury and stomach-numbing disgust after realizing that she, too, had been robbed of color. She was clothed in a swatch of black silk that might have been laughingly related to nightwear. The fact that she wore nothing beneath the silk but clammy skin was just another nail in Jareth's coffin. Or so she told herself, over and over, as she paced the black floors and along the black curtained walls of her exquisite prison. She tried to hold onto every drop of fiery anger to pit against the icy gut-wrenching terror of knowing that Jessie was apart from her. That her child was alone, and that she was with _him_.

No doors, no windows, no escape. And Jessie was gone. Sarah's eyes burned sickly with fear and defiance as she began to rip the curtains from the walls with white-knuckled hands. And then she began to scream: "JARETH! Let me OUT! Let me OUT, you BASTARD! WHERE IS SHE! Let me OUT!"

Strips of gauzy black fabric rent the air as Sarah's rage carried her from wall to wall, tearing at the curtains with her nails. The passionate fury of her emotions painted her with dangerous beauty. She was a goddess in her anger. Not a goddess of love, or light, or laughter. A goddess of pain and blood and revenge. A goddess that you prayed to when there was nothing left but to embrace death, or inflict it.

It delighted him, seeing her burn so dark. She was becoming more his already. He watched her rage through the room until nothing but destruction lay in her wake. He watched her scream herself hoarse, cursing him until exhaustion forced her into a sweaty, bloody tangle on the floor.

~0o0~

And when her body finally shut down, and after hours of merely watching, Jareth brought himself to her room and whispered a spell into the air. The room repaired itself, as did the torn fingernails of Sarah's hands, and the bruises that blushed along her ivory skin.

The bed that she had done her best to rip apart was perfect once again, and Jareth considered it and then dismissed it, leaving Sarah huddled on the floor to glow palely against the dark shine of stone. He lifted the spell of sleep that he had woven into her mind while he settled back into his throne and watched in a crystal ball as she shivered in her sleep.

A battle warred in Jareth's eyes as the cruel lines of his face stretched themselves taut. He gestured as he stalked from the throne room, negligently smashing the crystal into dust as he headed toward the wing of his castle housing his second captive. Sarah's _Jessie_. Now, his. They would both be his before the end.


	4. Reap and Sow

The bedroom was fit for a princess. Everything a child could want or desire seemed to be tucked into the huge space—among jeweled tables and miniature vanities and elaborate wardrobes. A little girl's dream—dipped in red and rolled in gems.

Just as Sarah's room was black was Jessie's room red. Yes, it was a room for a princess, but not a princess of pastels and pinks. It was a room for heat and temper and selfishness—It was a room for Jareth's princess.

He stood beside the bed that Jessie slept in—saw her tucked amidst the grandeur of silks and satins and furs as he felt the lingering touch of his magic permeate from her skin like perfume. She was now truly _his_.

Slowly, with gentle fingers, he brushed Jessie's hair from her eyes, and though he didn't realize it, he began to hum a lullaby to the sleeping child.

~0o0~

Across the castle, locked into the death-like sleep of the mentally and physically exhausted, Sarah lay wrapped in a soft fur atop an enormous black bed.

~0o0~

Jessie dreamed of her Daddy. Of his deep velvet voice that wrapped around her, protecting her, loving her... And so she slept.

~0o0~

When Sarah awoke her first, almost childish, sleepy thought was wonder at where the pain had gone. She had felt as though she had been drowning in it until black waves of draining exhaustion had crashed over her.

It didn't take long before she realized that there was a perfectly good reason why she was no longer in pain. She had been... healed. At least physically, as there was nothing Jareth's damn magic could do to touch upon the riotous wellspring of emotions she harbored for the one who had stolen her child and caged her in her silken prison.

The room that she had done her damnedest to destroy was, once again, restored to its dark glory. And if she hadn't known, to the marrow of her bones, that she had spent hours savaging it she may have been inclined to believe her earlier violence a dream. Or perhaps, taking into account her current location, a nightmare.

Anger pitted into a hard knot in her stomach as her fingers clenched in the fur wrapped around her. Her hands longed to scratch and claw at the one who had dared to separate her from her child. Magic or no, she swore to herself that she would find Jessie, even if she had to kill Jareth to do it.

As though her bloodthirsty thoughts had summoned him, Jareth was suddenly there, merely feet away from the platform of the bed and clothed in black from head to toe, blending into his surroundings so that only the pale skin of his face and the halo of his fair hair stood out in the shadow-laden room.

Sarah immediately began to struggle with throwing the substantial weight of the fur off her body, her eyes locked onto Jareth as rage misted her vision, "You BASTARD. Where's Jessie? Where is she?"

His voice cut through the air with a chillingly playful edge, "Your _Jessie_ is where I left her." He strode to the bed and with a flick of the arm, had Sarah uncovered. She immediately leapt at him, terror and anger overriding sense as she lashed out at him by the only means left to her.

Jareth dodged her nails and teeth with a patronizing laugh, infuriating her to the point of stupidity as she screamed in frustration and renewed her attempts with vigor and animalistic fury.

His eyes sparkled as he pinned her to the enormous bed, forcing her with his body to submit. She recognized that dark glint in his eyes for what it was: pleasure.

Sarah's skin was damp with exertion, she was wearing practically nothing, and the entire time she had been focused on destroying him he had been enjoying himself as she plastered herself against him.

Seething, she forced herself to lie submissively against the mattress, though her thoughts burned with malice against the man—no, the _being_ —that had her pinned like a butterfly in that room that was leached of all but darkness.

"Has all the fury left you then, little Sarah?" Jareth's voice mimicked the sing-song quality of adult to child and Sarah's anger kindled fire-bright in her eyes as she clamped her mouth shut and glared up at him.

He met her gaze and watched flames curl deep in those green depths.

"Ah, I see that it has not. What a pity, I was rather enjoying the thought of you yielding and pliant beneath me." Lightning-fast he leaned forward and licked a line of wet heat up Sarah's taut neck.

She lunged forward once more, hell-bent on doing her best to take a chunk out of him even if she had to resort to using her teeth.

But he was gone.

"DAMMIT, Jareth!" Her body heaved as adrenaline and righteous fury pounded through her to the beat of some tribal song. She pushed herself off of the bed and whipped around searching for any sign of him.

His only answer was a delighted chuckle from a far corner of the room.

Sarah stalked towards the sound and realized that an open stone archway had appeared against the billowing curtains leading out of the room, into a hall of opulent red. She peered into the hall and noticed that strange markings glittered against the rich vibrancy of the walls. Ignoring them, she sprinted from her glistening color-less prison, escaping from black into red.

Jareth watched as Sarah ran down the long hall and toward the room where her sleeping daughter lay. He considered activating the runes of the wall and seeing what his little Sarah would make of them, but ultimately decided against it.

Better to let her get to her darling little girl. Better for her to finally see that she and that pitiful excuse for a man—that Ryan—were not the only ones that had a hand in _darling_ Jessie's creation. The child wasn't flesh of his flesh, true, but she was a part of him now, and to his delight and Sarah's inevitable horror, he was most definitely a part of _her_.

Sarah followed the winding corridor at a desperate pace, the markings on the wall speeding her along. She found them ominous in the way that ancient man feared the dark: with primal, instinctual fear. Sarah saw no reason not to heed her own misgivings.

As she reached the end of the corridor she felt a resurgence of anger as another stone archway loomed before her. If this had been another of Jareth's sick games and she was back where she started she wouldn't wait for a kindly worm to point her in the right direction. She would just scream. And maybe she wouldn't stop.

And wouldn't that be wonderful? Wouldn't that be a grand? After all, she was at the edge of completely losing her mind, who was to stop her from tipping those last few inches over?

Her half-maniacal glee was cut short as one face loomed in her mind: Jessie.

It was with her daughter in her thoughts that Sarah clung to the fringes of sanity and walked through the archway.

Sarah stepped from a red hall into a sparkling parody of every little girl's dream room—if the little girl in question had all the money in the universe and nothing better to do with it than buy priceless gems and adorn everything from the ceiling to the bedposts with them.

The room was the same bright red as the halls, and in it lay every item a little girl could ever desire. There was even a carousel in the corner that sparkled with the gleam of gold-leaf and cold diamond eyes.

And in the middle of the glittering masses of toys and miniature furniture was a huge canopied bed with a tiny sleeping figure nestled beneath opulent blankets and throws.

Jessie.

"JESSIE!" With a wild sob, Sarah threw herself to her knees next to her sleeping child and snatched her daughter into her desperate arms.

~0o0~

Jessie blinked sleepily up at the dark-haired woman holding her so tightly. She looked like a pretty enough lady, but she shouldn't be touching her, let alone squeezing the breath right out of her!

"Let me go." Her voice was firm with a haughty little emphasis that she knew her Daddy would be proud of.

Where was her Daddy? He was supposed to be here! Her face took on a tiny scowl.

The dark-haired lady had stopped squeezing her so tight, but she still hadn't let _go_. Jessie squinted up into the lady's green eyes and felt a weird little _something_ squeeze at her heart. But it went away soon enough and Jessie felt her unhappiness gathering around her fingers until there was a light pop and she clutched a crystal in her red-gloved hand.

With a wish and a flash of anger Jessie dropped the crystal and let it smash into bits of twisting magic that twined around the lady and pushed her away.

"Who are you?" Jessie's voice was cold with indifference and in her displeasure, she failed to see the pretty lady's heart freeze and then break into thousands of icy shards to the glistening red floor.

Sarah felt the last dregs of reality yank out from under her as she looked into the eyes of her baby. Her _baby_ that was looking imperiously up at her with absolutely no recognition.

Sarah's world slipped into nothing as Jessie suddenly shrieked with delight as Jareth appeared and she ran into his arms crying one word:

"Daddy!"


	5. Fruit of the Tree

Jareth wrapped his arms around Jessie, never taking his gaze off of the broken woman who stared into his eyes with dawning horror. Dismissing Sarah, he spoke to the girl in his arms.

"Angel, what has Daddy said about talking to strangers?"

Jessie leaned back in his embrace, pouting prettily. "I didn't _want_ to talk to her, Daddy. But she was squeezing me and I didn't like it. Besides, I'm a princess! She shouldn't even touch me unless I say she can!"

Jareth tapped the impetuous child on the tip of the nose. "Still. And you mustn't ever summon when I'm not here to watch you. Off to the kitchen. I'll skip the lashings for now, but you can tell Cook that there's to be no desert for you tonight."

Jessie's eyes, which had begun to sparkle with humor at his false threats began to immediately spill over at his proclamation of no desert. "But _Daddy_!" Her lips trembled as crocodile tears began to splash down her cheeks.

Jareth merely quirked his eyebrow at her and gave her a swat towards the door. "And you'll walk the entire way, or your punishment will be far worse than not having a sweet."

Jessie straightened her spine and swiped the tears from her cheeks before striding out the doorway with mockingly militant precision.

Jareth tried not to laugh. His little Princess had such a temper!

~0o0~

He glanced back to the silent, shivering woman standing in front of him and spelled a crystal to return Sarah's voice to her. She had opened her mouth to cause a scene the moment he had threatened Jessie with lashings so he had used his magic to keep her from interfering.

When she finally spoke, her words were shredded with grief and hysteria, "What have you done? She looked at me. Right at me, and she didn't even _know_ me."

Sarah charged him, clutching and clawing at him in wild rage. "She didn't _know_ me! What have you _DONE_?!"

His arms wrapped around her, a parody of comfort, as she struggled. "You have a choice, Sarah. All of this, every moment of the last seven years has led to this one choice…."

~0o0~

Sarah's entire world was falling. Her own daughter had looked at her like she was a stranger. Less than a stranger even. Jessie had been as dismissive as a queen shooing away beggars from the castle gate. Her own _daughter_. Sarah felt like howling; her pain had surpassed her humanity. She was lost to her fury, her agony, her loss. The world was unspun in the chaos of the emotions that swamped her.

She had snapped. Her only goal was to hurt him, to kill him if she could. She had shrieked at him, words that barely held any meaning to her now as she sliced at him with a body that felt leaden and unreal. And somehow, now the hands that had blocked her had... changed. They held her tight, presumably to keep her from hurting him, yet there was something...different now.

And he was talking, in that crisp way. Talking. She struggled for the words to make sense. And there was scorn and the razor-blade edge of triumph that she always heard when he spoke to her. But there was something else. Something...desperate.

And she knew. She knew what he would say, the same way that the sky is blue, and water is wet. And the monster unleashed inside of her smiled.

"She's my daughter, now. Truly mine. Blood of my blood. It's not something that can be undone. It's not something that can be wished away. I've tied her very spirit with mine. She can never escape me. But you; You have a choice. You can leave, Sarah. You can go back to that house and that empty life. But you'll do it alone."

Sarah had gone still beneath his hands. Silent and still. Her words twisted with contempt, "That's not exactly a choice, Jareth. You really must _say your right words._ "

~0o0~

Jareth pulled back, pushing her away; looking into the face of his creation. There was nothing left of the girl who had traveled his Labyrinth. Of the woman who had married a mortal soldier named Ryan. A mocking sneer hardened her lips, a taunting tilt to her head altered her posture from devastated to predatory.

Jareth took another step back, "You must choose to stay here with me, forever, or leave precious Jessie and return to your world. That is your choice, Sarah."

~0o0~

Her eyes mocked him, "Fine. I choose... You."

Jareth's confusion was palpable. Sarah could feel it battering up against her, strong as touch. She reached out and brushed her hand against his cheek and he jerked as though stung. She felt a delighted laugh tumble from her throat and forced herself to drop her arm. Too soon. One must be as careful as the spider to the fly.

Jareth had given her the tools to defeat him, and he didn't even realize it. Sarah Williams Olsen wasn't home anymore. But the monster inside? She was awake. And she was hungry.

~0o0~

His heartbeat skipped. She had chosen. With no further prodding or manipulations, without voicing a single complaint of unfairness or anger, she had chosen.

"You can never leave." He kept his voice harsh, and tried to mask his unholy satisfaction with biting scorn.

"'Stay here with me, forever.' definitely doesn't imply anything otherwise."

"You'll be _mine_."

~0o0~

"You'll be _mine_."

Jareth's last word rang out with finality. And beneath that, a raw desperate hunger.

Sarah lowered her gaze to hide her triumph as one side of her mouth whispered up in a ghost of a smile: there and gone in the blink of an eye.

"I'm yours."

_And you, Jareth, the Goblin King. You're mine. And by God, you'll pay before I'm through._

~0o0~

Everything inside of him had come to stillness. She was his. She was admitting it. He had won. And yet...To have taken the victory so easily—too easily. He drank her in, the puzzle piece that had finally been pushed into place, the jagged edge of his soul finally returned to him.

He would have her love. For what was time to a Goblin King? And she had just given him forever to win her heart. He pushed his doubts away. Even if there was something hidden beneath her acquiescence, even if there was some way that she could retaliate, some plot that she could undertake, she had literally signed herself over to him with her words. They couldn't be unsaid.

Sarah's voice interrupted his thoughts, "What's said, is said."

Jareth felt his lips curl into a cold smile, "You took the words from my lips, my dear."

He summoned a crystal and threw it at her feet. When the flash of power cleared into an eddy of crystal-dust, Sarah was gone and Jareth was left alone in Jessie's chambers.

He had won. His laughter rose high above the winds of the castle and echoed throughout the underground, and everyone who heard it knew what it meant: Sarah Williams was there to stay.

~0o0~

Sarah found herself in a sumptuous room; fit for a queen. The bed was on a raised platform that lay beneath a huge crystal clear ceiling letting in the night sky. She sat at a vanity fashioned from a stone that shimmered like black pearl and looked into the eyes of her reflection. The Goblin King's power had changed her appearance once more.

The woman in the glass was lovely. Her hair was twisted up in intricate knots and anchored with diamond pins that flashed like white fire in her dark hair. Her makeup was impeccable; her lips the color of pomegranate seeds.

Slowly, she began to recite the phrase that she knew would lead to her deliverance:

"The king had fallen in love with the girl, and he had given her certain powers."

The woman in the glass smiled.


	6. Will You Walk Into My Parlour?

Sarah sat down at the table and watched as Jessie walked in, staring at her with curiosity but no more recognition then she had before. She felt a pang near where her heart used to be, but everything was frozen. Her Nana had told her a story when she was a little girl; it was about a woman who was formed from snow with a heart of ice. It had never made more sense than now.

She lifted a piece of pheasant to her lips and chewed, following the dainty bite with a sip of the heady apple blossom wine that Jareth plied her with at every meal. "Will you ever give her back her memories?"

~0o0~

Jareth's eyes narrowed and his fingers clenched almost imperceptibly. This _automaton_ that Sarah had become had asked the question with as much concern as one discussing the weather. Jareth was beginning to feel _something_ : some unidentifiable emotion that beat in his chest like a trapped animal—something very much like….panic.

All of his machinations, his dark dreams and hell-bent determination had left him with the prize, but there was no taste of victory on his tongue. No triumph in the having of her. She was _his_ , bound to him in every form of magic he knew: her own words tying her to him magically, elementally, and for always. But there was bitterness in his mouth, and the clawing in his chest.

With one hand wrapped idly around a goblet of wine, Jareth looked at Sarah. Almost as if he had spoken her name aloud, her head turned and met his assessing gaze. It was something, something about those eyes of hers. The ardent green that had always made him imagine wrapping himself in her, in nuzzling her silken skin until the golden star bursts around her pupil glowed with hunger.

Something in those eyes was absent. He set his goblet down to meet her gaze and all he could see was an icy void; a pale green expanse that flowed into darkness. The spark of the girl that he had known, the one who prissed endlessly about " _fairness_ " and " _cake_ ," the one whose warmth that he had always longed for— was extinguished as surely as a fire can be snuffed to blackened ash.

Jareth was perplexed. It wasn't a state for which he was comfortable. _Time_ , he reminded himself, _time will see her back to life_. Slightly comforted at the thought of an eternity spent coaxing Sarah's flames to life, hopefully in more sensual pursuits as well as emotional ones, helped with the cessation of his wrists' involuntary flicking; he had unknowingly been rapping the tip of his riding crop against the heel of his boot.

Sarah's monster smiled with each irritated, involuntary tap. _Well, well, Jareth. Something has your tights all twisted in a bunch._

~0o0~

Jessie watched the lady eat with dainty precise bites and with internal admiration she did her best to mimic the lady's table manners. Jessie allowed herself a brief moment to pout as she remembered that she wasn't to have any desert. Her eyes shot towards Daddy, who was watching her fledgling mannerisms with a sideways crook to his mouth.

"My Princess has never been so… fastidious before. You make a wonderful dining companion, Sweet."Jareth's voice drawled with amused approval.

Jessie flushed with a grin of her own, of course Daddy noticed. He noticed _everything_. She eyed the lady again. The lady, on the other hand, barely glanced at Jessie before returning her full attentions to the plate in front of her. Jessie found that she was annoyed with the lady for not paying Jessie more attention. The lady was the intruder here—she was the one that didn't belong!

Jareth noted Jessie's preoccupation with Sarah, and he correctly interpreted the quicksilver emotions that ran across the young girl's before it settled chiefly on irritation. He cut her off before she could speak, or address Sarah.

"Princess, I don't believe you've had the pleasure of meeting our new house guest," Jareth languidly gestured towards the still silent Sarah. "This, Sweet, is Sarah. She's to live here with us in the castle."

Jessie stared at Sarah in shock. Not just a guest, but _staying_?! Who was this _Sarah_ to stay with them? She stared at Daddy and thought of the gossip she had heard amongst the castle servants and her royal tutors. Daddy was supposedly powerful, and _eligible_. A word that her tutor had explained to mean, available for courtship. And he was a King. Didn't all grown up girls want to be Queens? She felt her stomach clench angrily as she looked from Sarah to Daddy and back.

"She won't be my mother." Jessie spat out with indignant scorn.

~0o0~

Sarah looked into Jessie's angry eyes and deliberately kept the involuntary flinch of pain off her face as she compelled herself not to feel anything. Sarah's stomach churned and she laid her silverware onto the plate with deliberation, patting her mouth with her fine linen napkin. _Ice. Ice doesn't feel pain, it doesn't feel hopelessness. Ice feels nothing but sharpness and victory when all that is under its domain subjugates itself to the freeze._

Jareth accurately guessed how much that statement actually cost her, tsked Jessie and dismissed her to her rooms while he searched Sarah's motionless face trying to judge whether Jessie's remark had indeed drawn blood. But there was nothing other than the slight flinching he'd seen in her eyes. She was as emotionless as a doll, and Jareth began, once more, to flick his riding crop.

Jessie had remained at the table, her face scrunched up with mutinous intent and without another word, Jareth tossed Jessie a crystal which she caught in reflex. With a noise like a soap bubble popping, Jessie disappeared from the dining hall and reappeared in her playroom.

~0o0~

Jessie seethed. She didn't want a mother! She and Daddy were a perfect family. Stupid lady—stupid _Sarah_! Jessie needed to get rid of that woman, then things could just go back to normal. Just her and Daddy—just the way she liked it.

Jessie considered her Daddy's actions and realized that she was going to need help. Concentration spun the crystal from her hand and it flew to the open window, where it touched the tree and influenced the branches to grow toward her window, creating a sturdy child-sized set of steps off her window ledge and down to the garden below.

_Time to go into the Labyrinth. Brinlay would know what to do._


	7. Such a Pretty Parlour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this has been updated on 7/7/2014 and it'll probably be a little bit before I get the next chapter out. I want to have a couple of chapters written between posts so that I don't end up stuck. :) Reviews help make my world go 'round so please leave one if you like this story and want more! Thanks!

Jareth sat in his throne room, an audience to his court, listening to any problems or issues that they sought to bring before him. Not for the first time, he wondered at why he had been forced to become King to a race who were So. Incredibly. Stupid. Goblins were the closest thing to human children that Jareth had ever come across in The Underground. They had no gift of foresight, no ability to plan for the future. It was a wonder the entire race hadn't gone the way of the mortal dodo.

"Sire, then I stoles the ring back. As it was rightly mine, since I was the one that won the bet." A screeching voice continued on in soliloquy.

"But Sire, T'was my ring, my brother had no reason to be betting it!" This screeching voice was distinctly female, and pitched high enough for Hellhounds to wince.

Jareth rubbed his hand over his brow and raised his hand to interject, "Am I to understand, Fogsbottom, that this _clan war_ was instigated over the rightful ownership of a ring? A ring which neither you, Fogsbottom, nor you Jessupclaw, can claim true ownership since Hidesclaw claims that it is passed to firstborn female goblins in your family?"

"But Sire, I wons it fair and square! Tis MINE and them Claws Clan shouldn't be interfering with my properties!"

Jareth felt the magic well up inside of him, enough magic to blight Fogsbottom off the face of the Underground, followed swiftly by the Bottom Clan and the Claws Clan, just for being privy to such complete and utter idiocy. Sweet Gods Sake. They had _destroyed_ an inn and a crop of perfectly good wildeberries with their "clan war" all over a ring with no value other than as a family keepsake. Undoubtedly desired by Fogsbottom just because he decided it was admiringly _shiny_.

Jareth released a breath and allowed the magic to settle back down. If there was ever a time that reminded him that being King of Goblins was indeed a punishment, it was during these bi-weekly court audiences. In the last month alone, he had solved a dispute with fairies over breeding territory, some squabbles over a couple of local goblin clan boundary lines, and some legitimate concerns over the Fireys migrating their fire camps too far into the Heart of the Woods. Jareth suppressed a shudder at the thought of the bodies that had been cropping up; Fireys had begun mutating before dying slow and painful deaths. Such a pity.

Jareth snapped himself from those grim thoughts and focused on the ruckus in his throne room. The two goblins had continued to squabble, while Hidesclaw clutched tight to the ring on her finger and plump tears streaked down her scraggly face.

"As King of Goblins, I decree that Hidesclaw shall keep her ring, but restitution from Jessupclaw to Fogsbottom is in order, for not only losing your bet but bartering something that rightfully belongs to your sister. You shall either pay him by helping to restore the Bottom clan's wildeberry crops or by providing enough coin for Fogsbottom to have his own ring commissioned. And BOTH clans Bottom and Claw shall spend 2 months reporting to the Castle for work, since you both destroyed an inn which rightfully belonged to the crown. You'll all help rebuild the inn, and work here, besides, until you can get it through your thick skulls that raising hell over a scrap of metal isn't just stupid, it's a bloody inconvenience. To me. And what, exactly have I drummed into the Kingdom since I became king?!"

All of the bug-eyed goblins standing beneath the throne answered in tandem, "Never be an inconvenience to the Goblin King."

Jareth leered with menace. "Or?"

Once more, they shuffled their feet and gave the answer together, like recalcitrant children. "Or we get what we deserve."

Jareth gestured toward a statue situated at the far corner of the throne room. It had the pudgy limbs and the pieced-together armor of the goblin castle guard. It was also frozen in an expression of dawning horror—one hand held out in obvious supplication.

Jareth let them all gulp and discreetly wet themselves as he drawled in velvet tones. "I was thinking of perhaps starting a new garden. Spread the word that these petty clan wars will either stop, NOW, or I shall be forced to add to my woefully small statuary collection." His smile was razor sharp. "Just one statue isn't much of a garden, you see."

The shaking mass of Bottoms and Claws slowly backed out of the throne room before scrabbling out the doorway as quickly as their boots could take them. Only one small figure remained. Hidesclaw was hunched down, in a parody of a curtsy, the trail of her tears still visible across her small cheeks.

"Thank you, Sire. This ring is all that's left of me Mum. Thank you." Jareth fought not to roll his eyes as Hidesclaw made her exit and he returned to mentally cursing his father for sending him to this abysmal kingdom.

~0o0~

Sarah had been given the run of the castle. In her time of living there she had realized some uncomfortable truths about the domicile of the Goblin King. One being that the castle was populated with invisible servants whom Jareth referred to as "Brownies." They were almost always around, listening, anticipating.

Once when Sarah had thought herself alone, she had muttered something about how much she missed the picture of Ryan that she had on her nightstand. That night, Sarah found the picture on the nightstand in a frame made from real gold. It gave her hope that perhaps the worlds could be crossed by the Brownies, offering another solution to how she might return home. Upon closer inspection, Sarah realized that it wasn't actually a picture in the frame, but instead an intricate drawing that mimicked the picture so closely that if she weren't living in a magical castle, in a magical kingdom, she would have thought it a carbon copy.

After that episode and several like it, Sarah came to the conclusion that the Brownies didn't just clean, but were in fact master-craftsman and definitely in possession of some kind of magic of their own. The realization that she was being watched every minute in the castle, definitely wasn't a happy one. The monster inside was silent for now, but often took to stalking around in the pit of her stomach. How was she supposed to do what she must if the brownies were just going to report to Jareth?

There were also a few other servants in the castle, servants that were neither goblin, nor whatever race Jareth was. She had been there for a while. The days had begun to blur together but she estimated that by a mortal standards she'd been a "guest" of the castle for about a month and a half.

A month and a half of wandering the grounds, collecting information on the castles inhabitants, and forcing herself not to fall into hysterics every time Jessie glared at her, or imperiously stomped around in bejeweled mary-janes like the princess she proclaimed to be.

Sarah found Jessie to be calculating and disdainful, a perfect foil to Jareth's own brand of haughty scorn. There was nothing left of the sensitive, sweet girl that Sarah had raised. Or if there was, Jessie certainly had no desire to show those qualities to Sarah. She was clearly resentful of Sarah's presence in the castle, and even more angry since Jareth insisted that Sarah spend all meals and every afternoon in his presence.

At first he engaged her in conversation, it was infuriating, sitting there while he quizzed her on her vacuous existence in a magical freaking castle. Was her room to her liking? Did she enjoy the gardens? He spattered his ridiculous hostess-like quizzes with insults and backward compliments, his moods going from overly inquisitive to verbally abusive at the bat of an eyelash.

Sarah smirked, she suspected that it had something to do with her non-committal one-word replies. That her response seemed to draw his ire only made it that much more delicious to her: like an icy sorbet on a hot summer day.

The monster inside was growing impatient. Reconnaissance was well and good, but Sarah had yet to find a weakness in Jareth, nor had she discovered how she might use the mysterious ability that Jareth had granted her. Surely in a world where fairies bit and rocks could answer a furry beast's call, there was a way? Speaking of. Sarah hadn't asked to leave the grounds, she had merely followed the unspoken understanding that she was to remain in the castle. She had been docile, unassuming, and purposefully empty company for Jareth whenever he requested her presence.

The Brownies were a problem she wasn't sure how to deal with. But staying silent, while amusing to watch Jareth struggle to engage her in conversation, wasn't getting anything accomplished. The flames that had ignited so brightly at Jareth's machinations had been buried under the ice she had used to survive the loss of her daughter. Because Jessie was truly lost to her and there was nothing Sarah could do; there was no Labyrinth to solve—no treasure to find—that would bring her back.

In all of the time that she had taken to despair, and to blanket that loss in an icy protective shield, she had grown accustomed to merely treading emotional water—completely neglecting to take action. It was too easy to continue along, burying her soul, forgetting her purpose. Too easy to forget the vow she had sworn on the night that she had signed her soul over to the devil. With resolution and revenge burning in her eyes, Sarah decided that it was time for a meeting with the Goblin King.

It was time to for restitution. It was time to begin her escape.


	8. Up A Winding Stair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews help power the muse. Feel free to leave some. :)

Jessie had been summarily dismissed from dinner when she decided that it was time for another visit to see Brinlay. It was past due for Jessie to see her best friend, plus there was the raven-haired Sarah-Witch to deal with. Jessie felt her lip curl in a silent snarl. She was so _sick_ of seeing that...that imposter at every turn! And when Daddy did spend time with Jessie, she could tell that he was more distracted than usual, and certainly more edgy. Why, he had actually snapped at her during her magic lesson yesterday! He had never done that before! Never! Daddy was always so careful with her, especially when he was angry.

She summoned a crystal and created her tree branch stairs, stopping to grab her satchel before she hopped out the window and into the deep red haze of the afternoon sunset. Jessie trotted carefully down the stairs, keeping her eye to the enormous sun that hugged the familiar craggy rooftops of the Goblin City. She figured that she could get away for several hours before she would need to worry about discovery.

She knew that the Brownies were aware of her afternoon wanderings, but they had their own code of ethics. Unless Daddy asked them directly about her whereabouts, they wouldn't volunteer the information.

After all, Jessie was a _Princess_. She had magic and Daddy had already told her that she was safe anywhere in the Labyrinth. The only place Daddy had placed restrictions on was the Forest. Daddy had warned her that the Heart of the Forest was ancient. Powerful and hungry. She was never to venture into the wood alone. Ever.

Jessie shrugged off the old mantra and focused on finding the opening to the Labyrinth that led to Brinlay's house. Her fingers tapped along the glittery stone of the Labyrinth as the eyeball lichen swiveled slowly to follow her path. She was caught up with singing to herself and almost missed the opening she needed. Thank goodness for the worm or she would have wasted precious time!

"'Allo!" The worm chirped up at her, his blue fringed head dancing a bit in the warm breeze.

"Hello, Mr. Worm! How are you and the Missus?" Jessie smiled warmly and inclined her head in the type of royal perfunctory nod that she felt Daddy would approve of.

"Oh, the Missus is right comfy, thank you Princess! Would you—"

Jessie cut him off, "I've no time for tea, but I thank you for the offer." She smiled once more and began to step briskly between the hidden opening of the maze, sending Mr. Worm a dismissive wave as she went.

The worm, busied himself with retreating back into his abode, muttering to himself, "No one has time for tea anymore. What a waste! Oh well, off to see the Missus!"

Jessie concentrated and a crystal popped into her outstretched hand. She focused and it began to glow—guiding her through the traps and false-paths that the Labyrinth continually threw in the path of any wandering visitor.

Jessie knew the True Path of course. The one way through the Labyrinth which never changed. But that took quite a while and passed through the deepest part of the Labyrinth, so close to its Heart. It wasn't a place Jessie was terribly comfortable visiting without the reassuring and powerful presence of the King.

Besides, the shortcut took her past the Orchard and Jessie loved it there. Each tree was unique and gave off a different type of offering. There was even a lunch-pail tree! There was a butterfly tree, a chocolate truffle tree, a mitten tree! They always changed and they were _alive_ in a way that made Jessie feel like each tree knew her and liked her. She _loved_ the Orchard.

Jessie greeted the trees and curtsied politely. Daddy always said to curtsy to any visiting dignitaries and the orchard seemed old and _powerful_. Besides, curtsying just felt right. The trees had rearranged themselves again; the first tree she passed by was tinkling with the breeze. Each branch was covered in tiny singing bells that seemed to give off soft lullabies of sound as the wind passed through the branches.

Jessie paused a moment as a soft voice sang softly from her memory:

 _Hush little baby, don't say a word. Momma's gonna buy you a mockingbird, and if that mockingbird don't sing, Momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring_...

Jessie shook her head free and rubbed at her forehead. She pouted at the light headache and dismissed the song and the tree without a backward glance. She needed Brinlay. After all, they had a mission!

Jessie passed quickly through the orchard, without taking note of the trees as she usually did. The trees felt her indifference and murmured to each other quietly, in the creaking rustle of their tongue. _The Little Sprout, she is upset. She ignores us_. The trees gathered themselves and just before Jessie stepped out of their depths she flagged to a sudden stop as the last tree dipped down, blocking Jessie's path with a bough trimmed in elaborate carvings: bears and tigers, gryffins and dragons. One carving dropped from its branch and into Jessie's startled hands like ripe fruit.

It was a carving of herself. Intricate and detailed. The branch lifted and Jessie spun around to face the silent trees, clutching her new gift to her chest. "Thank you." Her smile was full of unexpected joy and the trees hummed quietly to each other in satisfaction as she turned and once more headed for the break in the Labyrinth wall.

Brinlay's cottage was close, Jessie could smell the heady spice of gingerbread in the air and she stepped forward with a lively skip in her step. Almost there!

The cobblestones beneath her feet ended not one foot in front of her, turning from stone to a winding dirt path that meandered away from the Labyrinth and toward one of the many gardens that seemed to appear in random pockets along the Labyrinth.

As soon as Jessie stepped off of the path she could see Brinlay's house. It was a small iced cottage that smelled strongly of cinnamon spice and everything nice. There were candies stuck all over the house in colorful patterns, and the garden grew things like toffee and lollipops. Jessie loved her room in the castle but if she could choose? She would live in a house just like Brinlay's.

There was something else about it—something that always teased at her mind. She was unable to place what was so familiar about a house built of gingerbread, and the only clear thought that she was ever able to grasp without strain was that she was very glad that Brinlay lived alone. The charming gingerbread house gave off some niggling sense that should she ever open this door to an old woman it would be bad. Very bad indeed.

Jessie knocked briskly on the sugar-spun door and plucked a red candy button off of it, smiling as it magically replaced itself.

Brinlay opened the door and grinned. "You're late, Jessie."

Jessie shoved her candy to one side of her mouth and stuck her red-stained tongue out at her best friend. "But I'm here! And I brought the stuff." She hoisted her satchel up by the handle and shouldered her way past Brinlay and into the parlor.

Time to get rid of the Sarah-Witch. For _good_!

~0o0~

Jareth's anger at Sarah had reached an all-time high. He had been patient! He had not used magic to manipulate her, though it was admittedly difficult for him to use magic to influence her now that she was Claimed. Either way, he had left her to find her way in the castle. He had hoped to see her settle into her new life.

_And by Sól's fiery tits, if he had any desire for a goblin-festering human DOLL he would have created a simulacrum and had end of it._

Sarah's impudent and stubborn nature was half of the equation that he had found himself obsessing over during the long years that had followed her defeat of his Labyrinth and his spurned offer. His lips quirked in a cutting smile. Not that she had fathomed what it was that he had offered.

If she had called for him not 60 years before, she had she would have understood.

Humans and their constant, _frustrating_ need to redefine and isolate and redefine. A woman of 15 had been considered grown for hundreds of years. Suddenly some infant continent had flipped it all around, making it impossible for men of means to look at any woman in the bloom of her feminine power without the cries of "pedophile" ringing out accusingly. More's the pity.

He had no doubt that she some small _visceral_ knowledge of what he wanted from her. She wasn't the first lost young girl that had cast him in a romantic light. He and the Labyrinth had always modeled themselves accordingly. Dark King or White Knight; he played the roles his ingénue demanded.

And while it was true that Sarah was hardly the first to see him through the pink tinged glass of longing, she was certainly the first to which he felt any kind of stirring of intrigue. There was something about her, even then. Some indescribably unique quality that made him wish to learn more of her. Something so defiant in her eyes that belied the fragility of the dreams that she felt so very strongly. A woman's instincts wrapped in a child's ego.

She was delicious. And her dreams were so incredibly powerful. So potent. He had known that her spirit must have been unique. And he had wanted to keep her.

What Jareth hadn't expected, had never imagined, was that she would turn away from him, from his offer, and from his world—ripping the very fabric of the structure around them, leaving the Escher room a wake of broken blocks and bitter dreams. He had never been able to restore it—the Escher room sat in ruin, sealed off in an abandoned wing of the castle. He had, in fact, taken to adding to the destruction whenever the frustrations of his maddening office or Sarah's ridiculously stubborn disregard became too much.

Sarah's exasperating composure was enough to have him storming in the direction of the Escher room. After all what was a little more destruction to something already laid to waste? And god knows, smashing the ancient stones would give him satisfaction.

A thought stopped his brisk steps and he summoned a crystal. "Where is she?" The crystal reflected Sarah sitting in the library surrounded by her customary piles of text. She was staring into the distance, deep in thought, her eyes unfocused and yet still so maddeningly lovely that Jareth fought the urge to go to her. After a few more moments she seemed to come to herself and a look of determination flashed briefly across her face. She opened her mouth and spoke: "Jareth. I need to ask you something."

Jareth felt the words even as he saw them. He gathered power like a cloak and prepared to join her in the library. The Escher Room could wait. Things were finally starting to get interesting. Little Sarah wanted something, he would wager his soul on it. But what good was that really? Far better to wager something against her desires—something that would help his own interests.

With a wicked little smile, Jareth transported himself to the library.


	9. With Many A Curious Thing

Jessie sat at Brinlay's table and opened her satchel, the smell of sugar and spice so overpowering that she almost sneezed. The only downside, she supposed, of living in a house made of gingerbread would be the inevitable sneezing fits. Nothing to be done about it.

Funny though, how Brinlay never seemed to have that problem. Jessie could feel her lips stretch into a rueful grin picturing Brinlay, who was the closest thing to perfection that she had ever seen for herself, sneezing. Even her father, for all of his beauty, had imperfections should you know where to look. (And she was quite sure that he sneezed, albeit with more pomp and circumstance than most.)

Brinlay was utterly perfect, from her angelic face to the blue-black hair that was never a single strand out of place. If she hadn't been such good friends with her, Jessie probably wouldn't have had the guts to approach her, she was so beautiful. As it was, Brinlay was one of Jessie's best friends in the entire universe.

"Are the others meeting us today?" Jessie meandered toward the windowsill, planning on snapping off a small hunk of gingerbread sill to nibble on, when Brinlay waylaid her.

"We don't need them for this. Besides, we don't have much time tonight if you're going to get back without being noticed." Brinlay gave a playful tug on Jessie's finely woven traveling cloak, "Leave the windowsill alone and give me the rest of the ingredients."

With an exaggerated sigh and a roll of her amber eyes, Jessie acquiesced, pulling her satchel open and carefully pulling the requested items out one by one.

A long dark hair was coiled into a small circle and wrapped in a silken handkerchief. Next came a crystal glass bearing lip smudges in a deep pomegranate on its edge. It was wrapped in cushioning magic and Jessie opened her mouth to tell Brinlay that she would get rid of it, but Brinlay merely spoke a quiet word and the spell popped free.

Jessie felt a small tug on her magic, something like a rubber band snapping against her skin. She imagined the small circle of rubber bound around papers and remembered how it was such an easy weapon for the war that boys waged against girls in the classroom.

Her head pounded, she leaned woozily into Brinlay's table and tried to hold onto her thoughts as they seemed to shift and tumble around in her head. _What had she been thinking?_

Brinlay's concerned voice pulled her from her muddled thoughts and she shook her head before finally focusing back on the last object that Brinlay had pulled from the bag.

"Oh, that's _mine_." Jessie could feel her fingers clench, she wanted the little statue back in her hands. It was hers, a gift, and the feeling that no one else should see it or touch it whipped through her with absolute certainty.

Brinlay held the delicate carving up with care, "It's a remarkable likeness. Where did you come by it?"

Jessie reached out, a slow and deliberate movement of claiming. Brinlay allowed her to repossess the tiny statue with an indulgent smile and no protest.

"The Orchard gave it to me." Jessie could hear the defensiveness in her own voice and she tried to understand why she felt so very possessive of the little gift.

"It must love you, the Orchard doesn't give gifts often or easily." Brinlay smiled another one of her mysterious smiles as Jessie glanced at the little figurine.

"That's funny," Jessie said, quietly puzzled. "What strange clothing I'm wearing..."

Brinlay walked over and glanced at the carving in Jessie's palm. The miniature was dressed in blue pants and a pink blouse. She was dressed like a Labyrinth Petitioner. Like a _Quester_.

"I guess the Orchard wanted you to have a riddle. You'll have to figure it out... But later. Let's get these last items into place for the spell."

Jessie's eyes cleared as she tucked the figurine into the inner pocket of her skirts. It felt right to have it close. "Yes, let's send _Sarah_ far far away."

~0o0~

"You rang?" Jareth's whisper came from directly behind her and slid into her ear in a warm stream of breath.

Sarah had been expecting "an entrance" and she kept herself from flinching in surprise even as she swiveled and arched an eyebrow in droll response, "Casting yourself as the help, are we, _Sire_?"

Jareth stepped back and made a quicksilver gesture, the magic he called conjuring a settee which he draped himself on languidly. "Do sit, Sarah. I'm pleased that you aren't acting in your typical milksop manner but if we're to fence with words we might as well be comfortable."

Sarah's hand twitched to her hip, "We can't have a proper conversation sitting on the same chaise."

Jareth's smile was sharp and wicked, "Oh, very well." He conjured and then threw a crystal at her, hard. She went to block it, reflexively, and found herself summarily flung back into the soft and welcoming cushion of an armchair. The sudden lurch had her gasping as she tried to catch her breath.

He waited to hear her protests like a child about to be given an extra scoop of sprinkles on his sundae. He wanted her temper, he wanted to drink in her irritation like it was sustenance. He wanted her _emotion_ , be it good or bad. He was _starved_ by the very sight of her.

Her lips pinched, her eyes narrowed and she gulped back the words that bubbled to be let out.

Jareth watched her reactions and savored each involuntarily tick. He smirked as her throat convulsed, working, he knew, to keep her words from flying out to slash at him. How he craved the sting of them. Even barbs from her throat would feel invigorating against her obstinate silence.

"Cat got your tongue, Sarah? Am I to be plagued by your claims of unfairness? Will you tell me that you demand that I not throw my magic around, so to speak?"

Sarah's fingers dug into her palms so hard that she drew blood. Her voice was steady and controlled when she spoke, but her eyes spat at him like an angry cat's, "I called you because I want to go into the Labyrinth. I haven't been back in years and I'd like to visit my friends."

Jareth straightened, his indolent posture tensing for half a heartbeat before he settled back again. "You are not restricted to the Castle alone. You have the walk of my lands as my... Subject. There are dangers—"

"Untold? Hardships unnumbered? Been there, done that. Got the t-shirt and the commemorative plate collection for my trouble."

Jareth drank in her sarcasm like a rich wine, "There are _dangers_ , the Labyrinth has its own will, its own rules and its own perils. The path you took last was one designed for the spoiled child you were. The Labyrinth would not be the same for you, returning as a woman grown. If you go exploring, you are likely to be lost at best and maimed at worst."

Sarah's brow furrowed, "If it's so _dangerous_ is there nothing that you can do as _King_ to make it safe for me?"

Jareth leaned forward, wicked delight on his face, naked hunger in his gaze, "Oh, I'm sure we can arrange _something_ for you, dear Sarah."

The monster inside of Sarah growled menacingly. **_This one thinks himself the hunter and not the prey._**

"And what _exactly_ are we bargaining against, Goblin King?" Sarah's voice was bitterly sarcastic.

"Nothing that you can't stand to lose, dear, _sweet_ Sarah. And do continue to call me 'Jareth' in private." Jareth's smile was a study in mockery even as his voice dripped saccharine honey.

"And if I agree to call you by your given name, you'll help me traverse the Labyrinth?"

Jareth leaned forward in delight, "Very good, Sarah, but no. I won't gift you with the means to 'traverse the Labyrinth' without something a little more _tangible_ than the mere use of my name."

"Spell out the type of 'tangibility' you're seeking _Jareth_ , and I'll tell you if there's a hope in hell for you to receive it." Her eyes burned bright in anger and disgust. They shone in her face like the glint of gems.

If he couldn't have her love, her hate was almost as precious.

"A simple token, really." His mouth quirked as he continued, "A mere trifle—what I want from you, dear Sarah, is a kiss. Freely taken and given."

Bile rose in her throat as she imagined his lips on hers. This twisted psychotic monarch had stolen her daughter, ripped away her freedom and now he expected her to _demean_ herself enough to kiss him?

"One kiss and you swear to help me traverse the Labyrinth? Will it be an immediate exchange?"

"Are you so eager to kiss me then, sweet Sarah? You could have just asked." Jareth continued to prod at her, eager for the delicious reactions that flickered across her features.

Sarah's face froze into a look of abject revulsion, "Don't make me _sick_."

Jareth felt an angry clutch from deep within, her absolute disgust, it appeared, was not so delicious after all.

His voice snapped out, coldly cruel, "Careful, _Precious_. Or I won't help you at all."

Sarah glanced away. "Do you swear, Jareth?"

Jareth slowly stripped his leather gloves from his hands and stood, "I so swear."

Sarah stiffened her spine and stood up, walking towards him and looking into his face from inches away. She saw only amused expectation across his fey features. Jareth's blonde hair gleamed under the magical lights of the library and Sarah could almost see the sensual beauty she had recognized in his lithe form once, long ago—when a young girl had danced with a dark king.

A _lifetime_ ago. A time before the lies and the traps and the hatred that even now swallowed her whole. Long before he had gained her enmity he had been her adversary—a beautiful otherworldly antagonist.

And if she hadn't understood the true depths of his depravity and capriciousness at fifteen, she had learned them well now. Oh, she had learned.

Now she could only see madness in those eyes, cruelness in those striking features. He was a _monster_.

Steeling herself, she brought her mouth to his in a butterfly-wing soft kiss. It was chaste in its gentleness but the act had the slime-slick feel of defilement on her lips.

Pulling back, she fought not to scrub her hands against her mouth. "I'll have my solution now, Goblin-King."

Jareth's eyes gleamed as he tsked at her, "I'm afraid you've yet to fulfill your bargain, Sweet."

Sarah's outrage had her hands snapping out, barely restraining from clamping them around his throat, "I did _exactly_ what we agreed upon, you DICKHEAD, I kissed you and you said..."

Jareth cut in by darting closer and wrapping his hands around her wrists forcibly, "Freely _taken_ and freely _given_. Those are the exact words of our bargain, Precious. And I've _taken_ nothing yet."

Sarah was struggling against the shackling strength of his hands when she realized suddenly that they were far too warm against the delicate skin of her wrists. _He had taken his gloves off. He had **planned** this!_

Jareth watched as the realization streaked across her face, the confusion and shock warring with the anger until her eyes were cloudy with conflict.

It was then that he lowered his mouth to hers, still holding one hand locked around her wrists as the other dove into her hair and pulled and kneaded the silken strands. His lips and tongue plundered hers with merciless thoroughness.

Sarah had let out a single gasping breath before he locked his lips on hers, her mind spinning in pleasurable disgust. The Goblin King had _magic_ in his mouth, in the silken slide of his tongue, but he was _disgusting_. His hands were iron, his feeding mouth a leech against her lips and sanity. Hot rage burned the tingles of his expert strokes away and she struggled for freedom.

 _The little viper **bit** him_. With a growl he pulled her closer still, hard enough to bruise as he locked their mouths together, filling them both with his blood—a rich darkling bouquet. _Gifts, even ones given in ignorance, aren't to be taken lightly, Sarah—you **precious** thing_.

Jareth pulled away with a jerk, his wound already healing as he quickly slid his hand from her hair to her neck and stimulated her throat with sure fingers.

With a sputter Sarah swallowed convulsively before spitting and coughing the rest of the blood out in dribbles to the library's polished stone floors. Jareth disappeared with his delighted _demented_ laugh still ringing in her ears. Sarah continued to spit and wipe furiously at her mouth, rejecting the taste and feel of his kiss.

It took her several heartbeats to realize that there was something draped around her neck—A long gold chain with what appeared to be some kind of odd compass dangling from it.

She let out an impotent scream and continued to try to wipe the thick copper taste of Jareth's blood from her tongue.

And Sarah knew that she had not been the winner of that round. Far from it. He had managed to arouse and disgust her in equal measures and she knew now to be wary of his deals—he fought a multi-pronged attack and now they both knew she had a weakness. What had been a simple hatred was beginning to twist—she hated him even more for his burning caresses and the wine-rich flavor of his kiss. She _despised_ him with the desperate power of someone for whom the goblin fruit had been a sickly sweet slide across the palate; a venomous delicacy that beguiled even as it razed.

She needed to destroy him. Not just for Jessie, not just in the hope that with his death would come her freedom, no. Now she needed to _unmake_ him— _unspin_ those wicked hands and lips. Sarah had wanted him dead but now she wanted him _annihilated_. Blotted from her mind and memories, broken and scattered, unable to make her feel such darkly thrilling disgust _ever again_.

She would kill the Goblin King.

Sarah's fingers clenched around the compass so hard that the metal was a cold bite against her palm. She would go into the Labyrinth. She would discover the path to Jareth's ruin.

After all these years, Sarah was returning to the place where it had begun. And it was there that she would seek out the ones that had helped her _then_.

And after all, what was a little murder between friends?


End file.
